Blue Apron Review: Meal Kits with a Gourmet Twist

No one tells you that being an adult means figuring out what's for dinner every night for the rest of your life. The advent of modern meal delivery kits has made the question of what is for dinner a little easier to answer, at least for a few nights a week. But which ones are best?

While meal delivery services can help reduce the time and energy needed to meal plan, shop, and cook every week, they aren't all created equally. Sometimes, the dishes can be lackluster in the flavor department, or the kits just aren't interesting enough versus what you'd already make. A good meal kit should make mealtime easier and teach you a little something simultaneously.

Blue Apron seems to believe its customers deserve better, given its various menus crafted by chefs and high-quality ingredients. I tested a couple of meal kits from the service to see how the company stacks up against the offerings in the thankfully overcrowded market. These were the results.

What Is Blue Apron, and How Does it Work?

Blue Apron is a meal delivery service that wants to elevate the home cooking experience with its chef-curated menus, obsession with sourcing quality ingredients, and commitment to supporting the planet.

The sign-up process with Blue Apron has all the usual components: account creation, the addition of delivery information, and an opportunity to put in some meal preferences. Blue Apron delivers Monday through Friday, allowing you to choose which day you prefer to receive your meals, and it ships to zip codes in all 48 contiguous United States.

Once you’re past the information entry point, you can select your weekly meals. While some dishes populate based on your indicated preferences, you can always choose from the full menu and customization options. Once you select your meals, you’re set for the week — that is, unless you want to browse the wine selection.

Pricing

The value proposition from Blue Apron truly is one of its unsung highlights. The company’s meals are very competitively priced, with a starting point of $8.99 per serving for the largest plan of four meals per week with four servings each and ranging up to $12.49 per serving for the smaller plans of two meals per week at two servings each. Premium meals and protein customizations come at an added cost, and shipping costs $10.99 per shipment. However, at baseline, Blue Apron is one of the more affordable options in the marketplace, especially considering the quality.

Meal Choices

Blue Apron manages to create a lot of variety for its smaller menu of fewer than 20 options each week. The meals have a good range of flavor profiles and dish compositions, so you’ll likely see a mix of proteins and cuisines. It’s all presented with a bit of restaurant-style flair and luxury, with offerings including a duck confit and coconut curry ramen or crispy skin salmon and Calabrian mayo with lentils, caramelized onions, and vegetables. 

Dishes that fall under categories like “Chef Favorites,” “Premium,” and “Craft” have a more high-end feel, while options like “Family Friendly,” “Ready to Cook,” and “Fast and Easy” cater to busier folks. Additionally, meals in the “wellness” category are designed in collaboration with nutritionists, and those are no less enticing. You’ll also find an assortment of add-ons each week, like premade single-serving meals, desserts, breakfasts, prepared proteins, and even specialty and seasonal items. 

Meals we have tested: 

• Pappardelle with kale, ground pork, and Calabrian chilies
• Vegetarian Lo mein with red peppers and shitake mushrooms
• Oven-baked chicken thighs and rice with snow peas and sambal-soy sauce
• Pan-seared steaks and hot honey biscuits with glazed onion and sautéed kale
• Shawarma-spiced cod and arugula salad with roasted potatoes

The Cooking Process

Blue Apron recipes provided all the guidance needed to produce a quality meal. While each dish required differing levels of cooking skills, equipment, and time, the service makes no apologies for asking its home cooks to get to work. In fact, it’s designed for people who want to flex their culinary muscles (at least sometimes). Although some recipes will challenge the most seasoned home cooks, there are still choices easy enough for children to help with. That is always a plus.

Taste and Quality

The flavor and quality of the ingredients are reason enough to use Blue Apron. I also picked up some techniques that I will use again, but I love that they use hacks like pasta water to create a silkier sauce. It's a technique not everyone knows about.

I loved the end result of both the pappardelle and the lo mein. The pappardelle was a dish that taught me some flavor layering tricks I will employ later on in other dishes because the end result was such a wow. I don't think I have ever combined kale, Calabrian chilies, and mascarpone together, but it worked. The lo mein noodles were also surprisingly fresh and chewy. They were so long we had to cut them with scissors when serving, which was a joy to everyone.

Final Thoughts

As someone who cooks almost every night, a meal kit has to be worthwhile for me to order it. Most importantly, it has to taste good, and the kits I received from Blue Apron were excellent. My entire family devoured the pappardelle and lo mein, and it was very convenient to have something ready to go after a long day of work. I would definitely use the service again outside of testing, and I wouldn't say that about every meal kit service I've tried.

FAQs

We asked Tori Martinet, a professional cook, dietitian, and meal delivery service expert, some commonly asked questions about Blue Apron. Here's what she said.

Who should use Blue Apron?

Blue Apron is truly fit for food lovers and anyone excited about getting in the kitchen to create a restaurant-quality meal. Even if they don’t have all the time in the world to achieve it. This service is an excellent choice for singles, couples, or a smaller family, and it’s definitely not to be overlooked by the budget-conscious consumer, coming in at a similar starting price as some kits that don’t deliver the same flavor experience.

Are Blue Apron meals healthy?

Blue Apron is truly fit for food lovers and anyone excited about getting in the kitchen to create a restaurant-quality meal," says Martinet. "Even if they don’t have all the time in the world to achieve it. This service is an excellent choice for singles, couples, or a smaller family, and it’s definitely not to be overlooked by the budget-conscious consumer, coming in at a similar starting price as some kits that don’t deliver the same flavor experience.

How many servings are in each Blue Apron meal?

Meals from Blue Apron come in either two-serving or four-serving increments, and while we’ve found that portion sizes vary somewhat from dish to dish, you can pretty much depend on getting just that. If you’re looking for individual servings, there are some reheatable single-serving prepared meals on the menu, but if you want larger quantities, you may need to look elsewhere.

Are Blue Apron meals easy to cook?

Blue Apron doesn’t shy away from getting you moving in the kitchen, and some recipes can be quite demanding in terms of time and skill level. However, the menu also includes recipes that are sheet-pan meals for easy cleanup or oven-ready with pre-prepped ingredients so you can opt out of the effort on busy nights. There are also Fast & Easy options, labeled as such, that are true to their name.

Can you get Blue Apron recipes without a subscription?

You can preview the current menus and access recipe cards before creating a subscription, which means you can get the details on how to make chef’s favorites like pork belly tacos and pineapple salsa. However, you won’t be able to look back at previous menus or recipes like you can if you’re an account holder. And, of course, you also miss out on the advantages of having all your ingredients for the week packed up and shipped right to your door.

Can you freeze Blue Apron meals?

If you’re looking for freezer-friendly options, I’d start with the single-serve, heat-and-eat meals that are individually packaged and would likely work well to stock your freezer. Aside from that, not much is billed as freezable, though there is always the option to freeze the proteins and certain other ingredients that come with kits if you aren’t able to get to them in a given week. You could also prep one of the oven-ready meals and freeze it prior to baking, but be warned — the instructions won’t cover this, so you’ll be striking out on your own.

What's the packaging like?

While effective at keeping the food cold and organized, the packaging from Blue Apron is perhaps not its strongest element due to its abundance. While this doesn’t distinguish it from other meal kit companies, it is a notable part of the Blue Apron experience. While it may be necessary for shipments of this kind or similar to managing waste from your groceries, it might give more environmentally home cooks looking to reduce their waste pause.

Our Expertise

• Jennifer Zyman, a Senior Writer at Food & Wine, reviewed the Blue Apron meals to update this piece. Zyman's work focuses on finding the best new products for cooks using her culinary expertise and in-house tester data. Jennifer's work has appeared in Simply Recipes, Southern Living, National Geographic, Bon Appetit, Serious Eats, and more.
• Tori Martinet also contributed her expertise and review of the service. Martinet is a dietitian, professional cook, and meal delivery service expert, so she knows what makes a company great.